Galit sa Mayaman

So I’ve been accused of being “galit sa mayaman” because of some of the stuff I’ve written or said. Worse is the accusation that I don’t believe that people should be rewarded for their hard work. Classic example is when a friend castigated me for acting really shocked when another friend of ours announced over dinner that he is considering buying an 800,000-peso TV set. This friend told me, “Excuse me, but he’s earned that money and he has a right to do with it as he pleases,” or something to that effect.

Now, I’m not really arguing with that, especially since the friend who had considered buying the TV is one of the people I admire most and does more than his fair share of community work and what people normally call “charity work.” If anyone deserves a TV that costs that much, it’s probably him. And yes, I do agree that, in general, people are entitled to spend their own money however which way they want. (Besides, in retrospect, most of my shock over my friend’s announcement over dinner that night was more from the fact that I simply didn’t know that TVs could cost that much, and not so much because I was terribly against my friend buying the TV. Or at least, not initially.)

After something I wrote kind of got circulated on the Net, another person reacted in much the same way, asking me what it was that had against rich people or people who worked hard. I’ve always thought that the person just misunderstood what I was trying to say, as with others who have similar reactions to some of my statements. But now I’m not sure if it’s just a case of misunderstanding, or that in fact, this world I’m moving in is really just drowning in this false, capitalism-generated materialistic muck.

I still think that there is something wrong with buying 800,000-TV sets. But I will not take it personally against anyone who chooses to do so. My problem with it has nothing to do with what I think people should do with their money. Neither is it because I don’t want people to have “nice things,” since I believe that we all deserve to treat ourselves whenever possible.

What I have a problem with is what 800,000 peso TV sets stand for: that great disparity between the extreme ends of our society, not just in the Philippines but on the global scale. There is nothing right with that. For me, it’s not okay that there are people who can buy 800,000 TV sets when there are people who don’t even have enough money for a decent meal. I don’t understand why for instance, we as a society spend billions on something as artificial as the advertising industry, and be such penny-pinchers when it comes to coming up with better environmental conservation practices and technologies. I don’t understand why a movie actress is paid millions when on the other hand a high school teacher is paid hardly enough for him to afford his own home. I mean, if in any way, how much we pay a person for what they do is somehow indicative of the significance or worth of that person’s work, then what does this general scheme of things say about us as a society and the value we place to what people contribute to the world?

Exagg ba? Maybe you will think I’m naïve or even ignorant to think these things. I admit, I don’t understand the principles of Economics all that much, and I guess you can try to explain to me all the market forces at work which determine people’s salary levels and all these other things. But knowing why these things are the way they are won’t really make them right or acceptable. At least not for me.

Let me make one thing clear: Hindi ako galit sa mayaman. Hindi rin ako galit sa pera. Hello?!? Marami rin naman akong kaibigang mayaman, at mahal ko silang lahat. I do enjoy having extra money whenever possible, and even wish that this would happen more often. So before you react adversely to what I’ve said above, please understand this one very important underlying thing about me --- that I believe that before we, as a society, can allow anyone to have too much of what they want, we should first make sure that everyone has enough of what they need. Everything else, for me, goes from there... So what I’m saying is not that there shouldn’t be any rich people, what I am saying is that there shouldn’t be any poor people. I’m not saying that luxury is bad. All I’m saying is that before we indulge ourselves, shouldn’t we collectively make sure that first and foremost, no one is hungry or homeless or uneducated?

Maybe you’ll say that it’s just the way things work and it’s stupid to think that things could still change. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is all just an exercise in futility. But you know, I’d rather do things that I think will make the world just a little bit better and be called a failure, than try and do things which I do not believe in, or worse, things that I know will just perpetuate what’s wrong with the world and have people tell me I’m a screaming success. Better to fail at trying to do something decent, than succeed at doing something that isn’t.